The group I experienced was with Katie Davis. The guy sitting up front with her was I believe Sundance Burke. He didn't say much when I was there. Both of these people have websites up and claim to be enlightened. They claim that Tolle agrees they are enlightened. They exist in a state of "presence".

Isn't it interesting how they have taken the word "presence" and given it a special meaning.

Looking back I find it interesting that I still have so much interest in "enlightenment". I felt I just had to check out the group to see how it felt. It felt creepy.

Interesting to note that the place was packed. I arrived right on time and I ended up sitting in a doorway of the kitchen.

From my perspective, any person who claims that they are "enlightened" and is "certified enlightened" by some guru, or Tolle, or whoever, is a con, delusional, or just plain obnoxious.

The very Egotism behind the claim of being "enlightened" invalidates their claims.
Ask their SPOUSE, or EX-SPOUSE if they are enlightened!
Its mainly just a New Age sales trick, in my view.

Coz
[The Enlightened Being from Uranus]

Quote
PSIsurvivor
Both of these people have websites up and claim to be enlightened. They claim that Tolle agrees they are enlightened. They exist in a state of "presence".

My concern is with teachers of enlightenment who do not invite their students to investigate their own cravings for enlightenment, their own ideas of what enlightenment is.

What do seekers think enlightenment consists of? And why do they crave it so desperately?

A lot of us may, unconsciously assume enlightenment means never feeling pain, shame or fear, ever again. Others may see certain enlightenment teachers being cared for by entourages, becoming millionaires and think, enlightenment means power. Never being humiliated or feelng shame, ever again. That it will make you so fascinating and desirable, you will never be lonely, ever again.

In short, lots of us may unconsciously equate enlightenment with a sudden magic liberation from the ordinary pain of being human--especially after hearing how a teacher was suddenly, seemingly magically cured of life long depression.

It would be interesting to know how many teachers check in first to make sure they're not suppressing an earlier depression before they go hit the road and teach. Its possible to 'white knuckle' oneself out of depression, especially by clinging to a sudden ecstacy and finding ways to hold on. The therapists call this 'flight into health.'

Problem is, it takes more and more energy and effort to sustain this suppression.

A number of people have reported how they are impressed with various 'enlightened' teachers because they have such amazing experiences when with such teachers.

These experiences may be delightful, but not reliable indices of a teacher's character.

Apparently it is not too difficult to prompt many people to have such experiences--and you do NOT have to be enlightened to do so.

David Christopher Lane describes how he used just a few simple suggestions and prompts to elicit amazing visionary experiences in his students. [vm.mtsac.edu]

And these students had [b:8763173368]not [/b:8763173368]spent time before class adoringly gazing at photos of Dr. Lane, or listening eagerly to his tapes. They did not come to class hungrily expecting to be magically cured of themselves.

A fascinating collection of other articles by Lane can be read here:

[vclass.mtsac.edu]

Finally, a very good overview of 'advaita shuffle' can be read here:

[www.advaya.nl]

ok, so a copy of Tolle audiobook "Stillness Speaks" arrived from the eternal library waiting list.

This thing is absolutely hysterical.
First, I thought my CD player was broken, as there is a HUGE pause of SILENCE at the top.......................................
Too funny.

Next, he talks in a German accent, with a British accent mixed in. Sort of a German with a British accent.
All I can think about is Saturday Night Live and Dana Carvey.
Dana Carvey could do a great parody of this.

Tolle calls his own writing "sutras" equal to great spiritual writings of the ages. (as if!)

To me it is like a type of bad joke. Its so "sincere" and terribly MONOTONE, and SLOW SLOW SLOW. Do not listen while driving, you could fall asleep. PAUSE… PAUSE...
Its as if he is trying to be so "profound and deep" by setting up these faux "paradoxes". Its so pretentious, and he talks about perhaps its better "to hold the book than read it". (gag!)

It is absolutely hysterically funny.
I am doubling over in laughter as he says the word, "compeuwtah", in this dry, monotone, as he talks of the futility of Knowledge.

The fact that it is totally humourless, pretentious, and so self-important, makes it completely hilarious. Its as if he is trying to be some pretentious northern European Zen Master, spouting profound revelations between tokes with his acolytes.
This stuff ain't so deep if your not high...

This is the funniest audio I have heard in a long time.
I don't know how one could sit through 3 HOURS of this stuff.
A good cure for insomnia.

Stillness Speaks.
What a profound paradox.
What is the sound of silence?
If Stillness could Speak what would Silence say?
It Speaks of the Silence of the Noise.
Silence is Noisy.
Being is the Silence the Noise of Speaking Speaks…or doesn’t Speak.
Speak the Silence by saying nothing.
The more you speak, the less you say...GONG…

(hey, this is fun! Hey, I could be a Profound Guru...I smoked pot back in high school too....)
I am going to take these CD's to my next "get together" and FORCE everyone to listen to them, and if their minds get distracted i will smack them on the head with a bamboo stick like a Zen Master.

Coz

I confronted my manager about bringing the ET affirmation cards to work.

I told her that I wasn't trying to attack her personally. That I just needed to let her know how much it bothered me and ask her to not do it again.

We had a brief discussion about how no religious material should be in our meetings.


survivor

Hi PSI:
Just be careful you don't "overreact".
That is, we all bring our anger and hurt from our Cultic past to this, and could easily overreact.
I would just keep it simple.

Your religious/spiritual beliefs are personal and private, and have no place in the workplace. Period.
I work with all sorts of people who belong to various cults, and wacko things.
In "real life" i am much more diplomatic and careful.
Bottom line, in my view, its best to just be assertive, and calm.
After all, if a person was Jewish, and the boss was getting folks to read the sayings of Jesus, that would not be ok.

These managers are always trying some new fangled management technique de jour.
Sometimes its better to just say, "thanks but no thanks", and leave it at that.
Wanting to stop everyone from doing it might be unreasonable.
If it were me, i think i would just Opt-Out of it, and say my religious beliefs are PERSONAL.
That should work, if its a decent workplace.

Coz

I just came upon the following tragic story of a teenage girl's death in connection with an obsession with Eckhart Tolle's book, [i:f6fb4634db]The Power of Now[/i:f6fb4634db]:

Quote

[b:f6fb4634db]"Now" You're Dead[/b:f6fb4634db]

As often happens, tragedy turns into a lesson. Although in this case, it's a profoundly painful one, because I know the victim's mother. According to Crime Library, 17-year-old Brianna Wilkins' body was recently found on the banks of the Yellowstone River, after she went missing in January.

In the weeks before her death, Wilkins had become obsessed with the book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. She had also stopped grooming herself, and had begun taking longer and longer walks into the wilderness. Eventually, she walked to her death (from exposure). There was no foul play.

I don't even want to speculate what was going on in the young mind of such a beautiful girl that would lead her to take these kinds of risks. I'm really saddened by the news. But it couldn't have helped at all to have had the advice of a new-age guru telling her that all could be solved by "living in the moment." According to reports:

Whatever her purpose, it's useful to consider why she might have walked away so ill-prepared. Brianna had reportedly been fixated on a self-help guru, Eckhart Tolle, who wrote The Power of Now, which emphasized living in the moment to find spiritual enlightenment.

A week before she left, she had listened to a tape of Tolle's ideas, and her mother reported that it had transformed her. While there's nothing inherently dangerous in such notions, some people can infuse them with a sense of urgency, giving up everything to attempt to achieve spiritual purity. If a girl walks out into the bitter winter cold without appropriate clothing or ID, and keeps going, believing that some divine entity will guide her just because she's "in the moment," then this advice becomes a factor in her self-destructive behavior.

I read parts of "The Power of Now," and found it insulting. For a book that's become a virtual industry of seminars and tapes, it's surprisingly vapid. It's disheartening to me that people will buy into this kind of claptrap, when they already possess so much deeper wisdom within themselves. Filled with trite platitudes, the basic gist of the book is summed up in the title: you don't need to worry about the past or the future, the only thing you can control is what you are doing in the present moment. Tolle emphasizes the impermanence of life, and that we should surrender to our ultimate lack of control. (Kind of a watered down version of Buddhist teachings.)

O.K., Eckhart, but common sense tells us a little planning does help. And a little reflection never hurt either. Attempting to live totally in the moment can cause you to repress your feelings, which may lead to conflict avoidance, rather than conflict resolution. Of course any regular reader of this column will know my personal approach to life is to get right to the heart of the matter, painful as that might be.

The problem with books like Tolle's is a bit like the problem of alternative cancer therapies. They won't really hurt you in and of themselves, but they don't help you either, and they may cause you to live in fatal denial of the seriousness of your situation. In this way the wrong medicine can become as deadly as poison. I watched a vivacious young woman named Judith Simon die (of untreated cancer) this way when I was a boy.

Focusing and meditating and being in the "now" won't make up for lack of a jacket or food when the temperature drops way below freezing--or much of anything else. Tolle would no doubt deny that this is what he teaches. "Of course," he would say--"use common sense." But that's the danger you create when you sell a totalistic philosophy. You are speaking to vulnerable people. Living entirely in the moment may be something a person would be ready to do after years or decades of focused mental training. Like Tiger Woods' legendary golf swing, such knowledge can only be acquired through intense devotion--which also requires balanced development in all areas of one's life. Tolle's wrapping of advanced spiritual concepts in superficial verbal glitter did not help a sincerely confused, but seeking 17-year-old. "...Just live in the now, all will be well..." Clearly, Brianna didn't need Tolle's final shove into the abyss of unreality.

Cheryl, my heart goes out to you. I'm profoundly sorry for your loss.

[b:f6fb4634db]Source:[/b:f6fb4634db] [blacksunjournal.typepad.com]

Quote
SarahL
http://www.nowsymbol.com/

For $6 plus $2 for shipping and handling we can buy a NOW symbol for our cars, for some reason we are instructed to place it on the left rear trunk area.

[i:36a54a527b]The NOW Symbol

Formed by two simple characters, the NOW symbol signifies the present moment. > represents the completed past. < represents the future, which is unknowable. The gap between the two marks is NOW - the present moment. It is only in the moment that we can really enjoy life and release ourselves from the mental noise that clutters our brain. [/i:36a54a527b]

I figure that a really good joke could be made of this fact, but I can't quite dream one up yet. Besides, if I don't stop reading up on Tolle soon, it will really take a toll........:)

www.amazon.com has 461 some reviews of his The Power of Now book.

The way the 'angled' brackets come together forms an 'X', which can only mean that 'X marks the spot.'

So, it seems like a form of branding. Corporations have branding; livestock are branded.

The tattoo on the back of the neck? Now that's commitment... :wink:

I find the level of emotion in what I have read so far to be revealing.

First, Tolle is not 100% correct, but be watchful to not toss the baby with the dirty bath water.

Second, just because someone is not 100% correct does not mean they are 100% wrong either.

I can testify to you of a personal understanding of my own self and how I work that has partially resulted from Tolle's writing and work. I find it personally interesting to read many of you attacking what you don't understand.

I can see how that is because when you encountered it, you did not have a proper frame of reference from which to get to what his words are pointing at.

This is typical. When human beings encounter something they do not understand the typical response is not questioning themselves, but attacking both the message and messenger (i.e. the attacks of the Jews on Jesus Christ, leading to His death and resurrection).

Our insanity is to believe the body of thought(s) already in our heart as though they are fundamentally true and unchallengable. Moreover, each of you seems to have begun your examination of Tolle's work from the viewpoint of "Everything I already believe is true."

Reality is: Most of what you believe is either made up by you directly -- OR -- made up by others preceding you and adopted by you as your own.

What I already expect is this: Some of you will attack me and my message here to you. You will not stop and challenge the basis (source) of your thinking, but you will (in self-righteousness) view both me and this message through the filter and prism of the thinking you already possess as though it were nearly flawless and completely trustworthy.

However, if you are wise, you will see a simple truth: Just because you think it, doesn't make what you think true (coming from and based on reality).

Further, if you are even more wise, you will understand that if even one of your thoughts can either be made up by you (disjointed from reality) or made up by another and adopted as true by you, then in this state you have no immediate way to know which of your thoughts is based in reality and which is made up.

If you are even wiser, you'll stop dead in your tracks and feel the fear (respect) of not knowing what or who to trust. You'll understand that if you cannot know the basis of your own thinking, then you cannot trust that of others because they are like you: filled with thoughts they themselves and certainly you cannot trust as being real Vs made up.

Finally, in this state of mistrust of your own body-of-thought, you'll wonder, "What then can I trust?" It is here that you'll be ready for the fundamental truth that Tolle experienced: I am not what I think, I just am; I exist regardless of what I think and the collection of thoughts in my head and heart.

When you reach this place, then you'll allow the reality of your being to begin to teach you what it means to exist and then learn how to anchor your thoughts (which in themselves are not bad or evil) in reality instead of your imagination (Gen 6:5, 2Cor 10:5). In this place you'll realiize how reality and human thought are not the same and you'll explore what it means to exist, being the watcher of your thoughts and not consumed in them (i.e. defining who you are by them, when actually you are something more than them).

Further along the road, you'll learn how thoughts produce emotions. No emotion arises of itself, but is produced by some image in the mind. When you realize this fact of our common human-machine at work, you'll ask, "If thoughts produce emotions and the emotions hurt and if I choose my thoughts, what is driving me to hurt myself with painful thoughts and emotions?"

If you get to this question: GOOD! You're well on your way! Further down the road, you'll learn how the driver behind this machine is common human flesh. It is the desires, appetites and lusts of the flesh which entice us in to the cycle of thought-->emotion: the flesh feeds on the emotions.

You'll also learn that words and actions are born from one place ONLY: Thoughts(Imaginations) + Emotions. You cannot speak or do without first thinking and feeling. I cannot. You cannot. We all -- cannot.

Try writing on a sheet of paper without thinking thoughts. Try typing a response to this post without thinking thoughts and emotions.

Try going to a movie or watching television without emotions arising from what you see (images taken in with your eyes).

You will find that we are a machine: a machine driven by desires of the flesh or by connections with reality (God Himself). These yield thoughts, which further yield emotions, which are the basis for our words and actions. Those words and actions cycle around back to more flesh or God driven thoughts, emotions ... and on and on and on.

I invite you to challenge your thinking and the source of it.

SitUbuSit:

Your post is barely coherent and rambling.

What is your point posting here?

Can you make a succinct point?